


Give Me Peace(But Then You Steal It)

by anD_nOw_tHe_wEaThEr (CryMeARiver3465)



Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Angst, BATTLE SCENE? KINDA?, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Just Straight Up Pain, Keefe Sencen Needs a hug, Keefe is a Mesmer, NF:Trauma, Post-Canon, Pretending you're okay when you're not, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Songfic, The Gang Plays Uno, This is a heavy one, Trauma, UNO, mild whump, someone give keefe a hug i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29947944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryMeARiver3465/pseuds/anD_nOw_tHe_wEaThEr
Summary: Keefe left.And they only got him back when they found him, half dead, on the floor of a Neverseen holding cell.And he seemed fine. He was fine. He never said otherwise.But trauma can be easy to hide.Especially if you're not looking for it.~~~Aka: SOMEONE GIVE KEEFE A HUG AND THERAPY ASAP PLs
Relationships: Keefe Sencen & Everyone, Sophie Foster & Keefe Sencen, Sophie Foster/Keefe Sencen
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	Give Me Peace(But Then You Steal It)

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> I found a prompt the other day, about a person having a traumatic experience and not showing their trauma and then this idea came into my head and i was like "thank you shannon for the opportunity to live out my dark and dangerous dreams." I swear I love Keefe so much. But sometimes we've gotta just MAKE HIM SUFFER. Welcome to "Keefe Suffering in real time". Whee. 
> 
> The song used is _Trauma_ , by NF. Listen to it! It's amaaazing!
> 
> So, uh yeah. Basically, this is set after Unlocked, and uh. Spoilers, just an FYI. 
> 
> Heed the TAGS, IM NOT KIDDING. THIS FIC IS HEAVY.  
> Extra TW: we talk about hurting and being hurt. STAY SAFE BABIES.

_Say you’re there when I feel helpless  
If that’s true, why don’t you help me?  
It’s my fault, I know I’m selfish._

Sophie Foster had him back. He had cuts, he had bruises, he had burns, and he had scars, but she had him back. Gisela had had him for weeks. Not just Gisela, Sophie reasoned. Vespera. Fintan. Gethen. All of them. The Neverseen had had her Keefe for three weeks. They had clearly hurt him, his body was seamed with scars and gashed with wounds, and Elwin was working overtime, cleaning, and washing, and applying ointments. He wasn’t so very beat up, Elwin declared after an extensive examination day, “Most of it’s superficial. He’s got a bit of internal bleeding, probably some trauma to the ribs, and a lot of little wounds. And, of course, the stab wound.”

Forkle nodded, firmly. “Someone tried to kill him.”

Biana weakly made a noise of terror. Elwin glanced at her, briefly, before turning back to Forkle, and continuing his assessment. “He’ll need to stay here for about three days, maybe more if things don’t heal right. Then he should be good to go.”

Forkle nodded, and Sophie stared towards Keefe’s bed. “Excellent.”

_Stand alone my soul is jealous  
It wants love, but I reject it.  
Trade my joy for my protection._

Keefe Sencen suffered a stay in the medbay for two days and three hours and forty-five minutes. And then, Elwin let him back into the wild. He retreated into Candleshade, not coming out of his house for days, scaring Sophie, until she was in his room and he looked at her with his wide blue eyes and he… he walked over to her and he hugged her, tight and hard, and apologized, over and over again, for the way he’d been acting. “I’m sorry, Foster. It won’t happen again. You’re not getting rid of me so easily.”

“Good,” She replied, “I never want to.”

His eyes shimmered more than normal, and he hugged her tighter. 

_Grab my hand, I’m drowning  
I feel my heart pounding  
Why haven’t you found me, yet?_

And then he was back, in a flash of blond hair and sparkling eyes, of witty jokes and thrown grins strong enough to make her blush. It was like nothing had ever happened, like he’d never left, like they hadn’t found him, unconscious on the floor of a thick rock cell, nearly bled out, hanging onto his life by threads. So, they forgot. And they forgot easily. Keefe was laughing with them, he was doing those silly dances, it was like he’d never been gone, like those three weeks hadn’t existed. 

“+4 to Fiiiiitz,” he sing-songed, and Fitz groaned in response, plucking out his four Uno Cards. 

“Unfair,” the dark haired boy said, “You had to have cheated.”

“You’re a telepath, Fitzy-poo. If anyone’s cheating, it’s you.”

Fitz grumbled something angrily under his breath, and Keefe stiffened a tiny bit. Linh put down a card, “Uno,” she said, and Sophie’s eyes flicked to hers.

“Dang it,” Marella said, “Why you gotta be so good, Linh?”

The hydrokinetic shrugged, brightly. “I actually don’t know how to play.”

There were several screeches in response to this, and Tam actually flipped the table over. Keefe was laughing on the floor, clutching his side, his eyes watering, as Tam and Fitz argued roughly how not knowing how to play the game wasn’t cheating and how Linh was definitely playing by the rules, and Fitz waved his hands around like a crazy person, and Biana was giggling, and--

And Sophie forgot; Sophie forgot easily.

_I hold you so proudly,  
Traumas, they surround me,  
I wish you’d just love me back._

So she didn’t ask how he was doing. 

She didn’t ask about his wounds, how they were healing, cause he always waved her off. “It’s fine, Foster.” “Only hurts sometimes, Foster.” “Don’t worry about it, Foster.” 

She didn’t ask about his trauma. She didn’t know if he’d gotten any, actually. He seemed unaffected. He laughed the same, he talked the same, he looked the same. 

He touched her the same, as gently and carefully as always, always so worried he’d hurt her in some way, like she was made of glass and he was a fire able to destroy her. But he was fine.

Unaffected. 

Nothing had changed. He’d blipped out of her life, and then back in. 

And he was the same as he’d been before.

_Say you’re here but I don’t feel it  
Give me peace, but then you steal it  
Watch them laugh at all my secrets_

The next time they saw the Neverseen was after those months had passed. Six or seven, actually. Keefe was normal. Sophie was as normal as she could get. Life had been going pretty well, barring everything that was going wrong. She went to dances and laughed at parties and hung out with her friends in the basements and kissed her parents goodnight.

And then, suddenly, without further ado, they were on the battlefield again.

There were fires and yelling and buildings were burning and she was staring right into the eyes of Fintan Pyren. He grinned, brightly at her, in that way of his, and lunged, his hands aflame. Her inflicting cracked to life, and she dashed after him, pain radiating from her fingertips. She caught up to him, slammed him into the ground, pain arching through him, pulled herself up, and stopped. Keefe stood there, staring at his mother from a ways away. 

Vespera stood next to her, and some other Neverseen warriors that Sophie didn’t recognize stood at her side. Gisela inspected the scene cooly, seeming to take in something, some arrangement, and laughed. She actually laughed, her entire body shaking with it, and as the Black Swan’s teenage defendants regrouped around Sophie and Keefe, she just kept laughing.

Sophie stared at her, surprised, and glanced to Keefe, wondering what the heck his mother was doing. She blinked. Keefe looked like an admiral whose ship had been lost at sea, whose only hope was to cling to a board and hope he didn’t sink. Why on earth did he look like that, Sophie wondered, and glanced back to his laughing mother, her head tilting to the side in confusion. 

A sick grin twisted Vespera’s mouth, suddenly, and suddenly half of the Neverseen soldiers were laughing, too. She glanced at her other friends, who all looked startled, and mildly unnerved, but overall confused. They glanced between each of the cloaked men and women, and looked ready to beat them into a pulp. 

She glanced back to Keefe.

He looked even paler. His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides, and his body was trembling. 

What was happening to him?

Were they poisoning him from a distance? Inflicting on him? What was happening?

“What do you want,” Biana finally barked out, her voice as sharp as the goblin throwing stars in her hands. Marella lit her hands on fire, and stood, waiting, at the ready. Tam’s shadows flickered around them all, once, letting them know he was at their backs. Maruca’s hands shimmered, and Fitz’s hackles raised.

And still, Gisela laughed.

She looked to her son, wiping tears from her eyes after a moment, and said, clearly, “You didn’t tell them anything, did you, Keefe.”

Sophie tore her gaze away from the flock of black hoods and to Keefe, as she spoke. He clutched his arm around his middle, suddenly, looking like the wind had been knocked out of him. 

“I knew you were no good when you lied to me,” she said, so coldly it made Sophie look at Keefe again, “But you didn’t tell them anything?”

Keefe took a step back, his whole body trembling, unable to steady himself. 

“Oh, this is too good, isn’t it, Vespera?”

Vespera looked amusedly between the two. “I acquiesce. You said your son was a right idiot, but I hadn’t known until now. They’d be all over him if they knew what we’d done to him.”

Sophie turned her gaze back and forth between the two.

Gisela took a step forward, her eyes glittering, and the ground burst into flame in front of her, making her smirk directly at Marella. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell them anything, kiddo.”

A noise curled out of Keefe’s throat, and Gisella grinned as she started talking, watching her son fall apart right in front of her with every word she spoke, “You didn’t tell them about the fire, did you?”

Sophie moved forward, as though some protective nature in her heart had stirred when Gisela spoke, but Keefe lurched forward too. 

“You didn’t tell them about those hours where you nearly choked to death on water, when we were trying to find out what power I gave you.”

Sophie saw Linh flinch at that, out of the corner of her eye, but turned her focus back to Keefe. 

“You didn’t tell him how we beat your secrets out of you, how weak you felt, unable to do anything that could stop us? You didn’t tell them how we got every scrap of information from your drugged babbling and are already using it against you. You didn’t tell them how much you screamed when we broke your collarbone. You didn’t tell them how you sobbed for them when the air was as cold as ice. You didn’t tell them about how dark the cell was you were locked in, you didn’t tell them how much it made you panic when we locked you in. You didn’t tell them about the poisons. You didn’t tell them about the begging, how you begged me to let you go, and how quickly you forced yourself to shut up when I asked you what your new talent was. You didn’t tell them how alone you were, you didn’t tell them about the nightmares, you didn’t tell them about the cuts and the bruises and the pain and Fintan’s silly little training practice. You didn’t tell them how we let you go only to drag you back and leave you more alone than before. You didn’t tell anyone. So pathetic, so worthless. Like not talking about things could make you forge--”

**_“SHUT. UP.”_ **

Sophie’s mouth slammed shut, as did everyone else’s in the surrounding area. Sophie glanced at Keefe, who was shaking, his whole body trembling, his nails digging into his skin, leaving jagged streaks of red blood up and down his arms. He was radiating a power, a compulsion, and it was widespread and unfocused, but it was there, and it was strong. His words, connected to his brain, shut down people’s mouths, their will to move their mouths, their will to say things, and Sophie felt her mind glaze over at the edges. 

Somewhere, out of the silence of the surrounding area, she realized something. _Keefe’s a mesmer,_ Her thoughts practically screamed. _That’s why he ran away._

He sank down into the ground, his eyes seeing things in front of him that weren’t really there. Someone moved, but before they could take another step, Keefe screamed, **_“FREEZE.”_**

Sophie felt her muscles seize up, as they had no choice, and she didn’t even want to move anyway, not really. Or, she wasn’t sure, really. Keefe’s previously held back mesmerization was leaking off him in waves, and his hands were gritted into the dirt, tightly, expecting someone to attack him, someone to hurt him. 

She’d been beguiled before, but this wasn’t like that. This was stronger, it wasn’t just a hint, it was a smack in the face, a “You have no choices, here,” and a screaming voice in her head. 

Keefe was mesmerizing everyone in the surrounding area. All at once. 

He had to be the most powerful mesmer anyone had ever seen.

He’d been captured and apparently actively and creatively tortured, so the Neverseen could have understood and got some reaction out of his secondary talent, but to keep them all safe, to keep his secret, he’d held it in. He could have controlled them all in a second, but he’d kept it away, kept it apart, and nearly died on account of it.

But, for some reason, despite making it through their tortures, he’d broken down now, and was using it, hard and thick and fast with much more force than was necessary. 

His breath was rasping in his chest, and seeing as it was the only noise anyone was making, Sophie heard it like it was the rumbling of an avalanche. Her eyes flicked to him, taking him in, and he didn’t move, for a long while, but eventually seemed to get some level of a grip on himself, glanced around, noticed the frozen people, and whimpered. 

**_“Oh no, oh no, oh no.”_** His words didn’t have any meaning, and it didn’t release anyone, but they were still charged with every level of mesmerization. **_“Oh no… I… I’m sorry, I don’t know how to make it--”_** He cut himself off, his eyes darting around like a scared rabbit’s. **_“I.. I’m gonna… I’m gonna go.”_**

With a considerable amount of consternation, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and then everyone stumbled to the ground, released from his grip.

He didn’t say a word, and before anyone could do anything, he whipped out his pathfinder, and vanished in a beam of light.

_Scream and yell, but I feel speechless  
Ask for help, you call it weakness  
Lied and promised me my freedom_

“Keefe?” Sophie said, gently, opening the door into a far too dark room, “Keefe, are you in here?”

Silence met this.

“Keefe Sencen, if you don’t come out, I’ll--”

“You’ll what,” Keefe broke in, his voice hoarse and scratchy, nothing in it even slightly mesmerizing. Somehow, he’d blocked it all away. “Stab me? Burn me? Kick me? Make me drink poison? Slam me around until my lungs won’t take in enough air? Yell at me? Call me names? What’ll you do, Foster. I’ve taken it all, and I’ll take it again.”

Sophie said nothing, her heart aching. 

Keefe groaned and walked up towards her, the room still very dark so she could only really hear him moving, rather than actually see him. “Come on, Foster, what were you gonna say?”

She opened her mouth, slightly, and said, very carefully, “I was going to say, “If you don’t come out, I’ll come in and find you.”

Keefe stilled. 

“I was going to offer you some mallowmelt.”

“I don’t need your pity mallowmelt, Foster.”

Sophie glanced at his outline, carefully. “Could you come out of the dark? I can’t see you.”

“Good,” he bit back, his voice sharp-edged. “I don’t wanna be seen like this.”

“Like what?”

He made some big movement that she assumed was him waving his arm around. “Weak.”

“You’re not weak.”

He snorted, softly. “Yeah, I am. I couldn’t even keep a grip on my mesmerizing.”

Silence, while Sophie tried to figure out what to say. “So, that’s why you ran, huh?”

Keefe made a soft noise in the back of his throat, and she heard him nod. “Luckily for me, I had a few days on the run before Mommy Deare--,” his words were choked off. “Before they caught up to me.”

Sophie swallowed, thinking of all the things his mother had said to him before he’d cut her off. “Can you come out of here? It’s not good for you to be all alone in the dark, Keefe.”  
He snorted. “I could have told you that,” but then he slowly walked out of the shadows, and into the light of the hallway. His eyes were red, and puffy, his shirt wrinkled, mostly dried tear streaks down his cheeks, and his hands still trembled. She reached for him and took his hands in hers, stilling them. He stared at her for a moment before pulling away, rubbing his arms down his hands. “Don’t touch me,” he said, carefully.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie answered, pulling back, memories of flinching and panic instilled by the simplest of touches flickering through her mind, “I didn’t mean to--” She stared at him. There wasn’t any fear in his eyes, no panic from being touched, much less even a look that said he didn’t want to be touched. There was a hunger in his eyes that made her soul ache, a realization flickered inside her mind, and she asked, “Why not?”

He took a step back. “Because I’m dangerous. I’m manipulative. I’m probably manipulating you right now. I’ve already mesmerized you once, I could be doing it again, right now, how do you know I’m not?”

She considered him, and then started walking forward. He blinked at her, his bloodshot eyes inspecting her carefully. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You coming?”

He nodded, sharply, and trailed after her. She walked down through the main floor of Candleshade, out onto the spacious, admittedly now overgrown grounds, and gently pulled Keefe into the sunlight. 

He looked at her, confused. 

“Did you want me to go out here?”

His jaw dropped, and his eyes widened, and then his face paled and he shook his head fiercely while stammering, “I don’t think I-- no? Maybe? It could have been subconscious, and I know I’ve--”

She cut him off by grabbing his hands again, and she looked up straight into his eyes. “I’m not afraid of you. The only time you’ve ever mesmerized me was earlier, when your mom went off about your… your… your torture. It feels like you’re disconnected from your body. I’m right in my body,” She squeezed one of his hands, tightly. “I’m right here with you.”

_Grab my hand, I’m drowning.  
I feel my heart pounding.  
Why haven’t you found me, yet?_

She sighed, gently, and said, quietly, “Why did you act like everything was fine?”

“Cause it was.”

Sophie shook her head, fiercely, her blonde hair spinning about her head like a halo. “Those things your… she said on the battlefield? Did that really happen?”

Keefe shut his eyes tight, and nodded, his hair swinging downwards, slightly. 

Sophie sucked in a sharp breath. She wanted to go back and kill Gisela Sencen. How dare she hurt her son so badly? She didn’t know what to say, but she knew she’d never be satisfied until she saw Gisela suffer for her crimes. 

A thought struck her. “Why didn’t Elwin say it was as bad as all that?”

Keefe shrugged. “Asked him not to.”

Her eyes widened, and she wanted to smack him. “Why would you do that?”

He stared at the ground. “What can anyone do about it, now?”

“Help you! Help you feel better!”

“I’m never going to feel better, Sophie,” he said, his voice crackling at the edges, “I can’t fix this, you can’t fix this, you can’t fix me,” he pointed at his chest. “I’m always gonna have these scars and I’m always gonna be a mesmer and I’m always gonna live in absolute and total fear of my mother and I’m always gonna wish I’d never been born and I’m always gonna be like this!”

Sophie shook her head, sharply. “No,” she stated, firmly, glancing out to the bright blue sky. “No, you’re not.”

“How. Do. You. ** _Know,_** ” Power leaked out of the last word, but there was no real weight behind it. She just was opening her mouth to answer, more quickly. 

“Because you’re not missing pieces, you’re not wholly broken,” Her eyes stared straight into his as she spoke. “You can learn how to control your mesmerization. You can get therapy and mental health, even if we have to go to the human world for you to get it. We can defeat your mother and we can finish what we started. You can show the whole world and yourself why you were born, why you are here, and why you’re here with me. You can become more than this, and I’ll do everything I can to help you, but only if you want. I want you to feel like more than this, I want you to feel like you’re alive and I want you to feel the sun and the fresh air and I want you to know how much this world is so much better with you in it, in every way, in every space, in every single moment, I do not want to live in a world without you in it, Keefe Sencen.” She took a breath, to continue, but he broke in.

“Why?” he asked, softly.  
She chuckled, slightly. “Isn’t it obvious?”

He looked at her, curiously. “No?”

She giggled a tiny bit harder. “Biana said I was so bad at hiding it.”

Keefe blinked, seemingly entirely confused.

Sophie sighed, gently, looking up at him. “I’m in love with you.”

Keefe stared. “Oh.”

She flushed. “Yeah. Sorry,” she waved her hand up next to her head, as though waving her emotions away. “We can deal with that later, but, I promise you, you don’t need to deal with all of this on your own, you’re not alone. You’ve never been alone, Keefe, okay? You’ve got friends and family and if all else fails you’ve got me, and that might not be much but it’s better than nothing and--”

He pulled her into his arms, and was sobbing on her shoulder, as if his heart could break, something falling apart that had been glued together for far too long, stuck together with tape and wishes and he was coming apart, the broken pieces he’d hidden finally allowed to break.  
Sophie held him close to her, her hand threading through his hair, gently, careful not to hurt him in any way. 

There was a wet patch, growing on her shoulder, but she didn’t care.

“Thanks,” he whispered, near her ear. “Thanks, Sophie.”

Her heart was breaking, too, but she nodded, slowly, and said, “We’re gonna figure this out. It’s gonna be okay.”

_I hold you so proudly,_  
_Traumas, they surround me_  
_Why can’t you just love me back?_

That was honestly the first time Keefe had believed it since he’d woken up. 

Yeah.

He was going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> *ugly sobbing* im not okay
> 
> Just, ugh. This was fun/awful to write. I hope you enjoyed angst.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to scream at me in the comments! Your support makes my day!


End file.
